Never played a Zelda game? Nintendo's Bill Trinen has a starting point for you: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Speaking in comments covered by Nintendo Life, the veteran Nintendo executive called the N64 landmark the "perfect place" for newcomers to enter the Zelda universe. It's a striking endorsement given how much the series has changed since — Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom reinvented the formula around open-ended exploration, and they're the games most new players encounter first.

Trinen's pick argues for the classical structure instead: Ocarina of Time established the 3D template — dungeons, items, the Hyrule overworld, the Link-Zelda-Ganondorf triangle — that nearly every entry since has either built on or deliberately broken from. Starting there means experiencing the series' vocabulary in the order it was invented.

It also doesn't hurt that the 1998 release remains one of the most acclaimed games ever made. For lapsed fans and the Zelda-curious alike, Trinen's advice is a reminder that the series' best on-ramp might be its most famous one.